I Don’t Forgive You
Photographer and young mom Allie Ross attends a neighborhood party in suburban D.C., “the kind of place where parenting feels like a competive sport.” Uneasily, she sips wine and flirts a bit with one of the local dads. She thinks it’s harmless—but he later assaults her in an upstairs bathroom.
The next day he’s found dead, and it soon becomes obvious that the police suspect Allie of his murder. Though she insists she encountered the dead man for the first time at the party, they point to a series of steamy Tinder messages she’s apparently been exchanging with him for months.
Someone has been impersonating Aggie on Tinder and Facebook, setting up fake accounts in her name. The neighbors are buzzing, and even Aggie’s husband wonders what she’s not telling him. Her mother and sister are involved too. Aggie doesn’t know who’s set out to smear her reputation, but it becomes clear that secrets from her past are forcing their way into her present, and she has to confront them.
This is Thompson’s debut novel, a fast-moving, absorbing thriller, with twists and surprises right to the end. Though a 2021 release was challenging, the book has been highly acclaimed. Even before publication, Kapital Entertainment acquired the license to develop it as a TV series.
Thompson has been an avid reader all her life, and even as a child was writing short stories, plays and poems. She became a police reporter, covering real-life crime and seeing her pieces published in the Boston Globe and The Washington Post. She eventually returned to fiction writing, though the road to publication was bumpy. Even after signing with an agent, her first three novels weren’t accepted for publication. Her fourth—this one—proved to be the charm, and she seems assured of a bright future as a suspense writer.
Thompson lives in Bethesda, MD, with her husband and two daughters.
[Click here to sign up to my book club — I’ll send you notices of new reviews when I post them.]